News

Jeff Rona has written music for many of the top fim makers around – from Ridley Scott and Steven Speilberg to Steven Soderbergh, Mark Pellington and Wan Kar Wei. He has also recorded and performed live with Jon Hassel, Dead Can Dance, Nyaz and Lisa Gerrard.

This month brings the premiere of Jeff’s first original live event – an evening of new ambient electronica featuring the incredible British electric cellist Peter Gregson and several guests. Slightly experimental, slightly cinematic, and with striking live visuals, the concert will be one of Rona’s most personal works to date.

Presented by The Soundtrack Cologne Festival, the Cologne Pop Festival, and Germany’s WDR, the shows will take place on August 20th in Cologne and August 21st in Düsseldorf at Kraftwerk’s original Klingklang Studios.

The music draws from many of Rona’s inspirations both on and off screen, and uses unusual new techniques for sound and rhythm.

An album of the new tracks is in the works and should be out before the end of the year.

In 1982 I was a young composer writing music for theater, dance, and programming synthesizers for a few recording artists to earn money. But an unexpected and odd opportunity came to me that seemed right to try at the time. I was really one of the first people in Los Angeles experimenting with linking desktop computers (a very new thing at the time) with synthesizers. I had a computer mentor of sorts, a scientist from Jet Propulsion Laboratories whose hobby was developing hardware and software to make music. All very experimental – but amazing things were possible with some effort. I learned just enough about writing computer code to be dangerous. It was all purely musical. I was by no means a software expert. But I had a good aptitude for it. I was eventually invited to speak about computers and music at the first TED conference.

There I am at the TED Conference (circled) with the group, courtesy of PANTONE.

I was at a local music store in Hollywood and struck up a casual conversation with a couple of guys from Roland who happened to be there at the time. When I told them what I was doing with synths and desktop computers, they got very excited. Within a couple days I found myself in the office of Tom Beckman, the president of Roland US, explaining my work and background. When he asked me if I wanted a job and could I write code for music software. I lied, basically, and said yes. I became a programmer and instrument designer for Roland that day.Within a few weeks of starting (I quickly got a programming coach to help me get up to speed fast) I had my first official meeting with some of Roland’s top engineers and designers, who were in LA from Roland headquarters in Japan. We hit it off very well right from the start. I had learned a few words of Japanese and did my best to express my deep admiration for their work (one of my guests had designed the TR-808 drum machine!). They brought me two prototype keyboards. They showed me a 5 pin jack on the back each and said “we think this is very useful…we want you to devote all your time to writing software for this.” These were likely the first 2 MIDI instruments in the country. The plan was to develop software to show what could be done with combining keyboards and sequencing. I was blown away. I had already written some software to sequence analog synthesizers with a pre-MIDI computer interface. This was a whole new world. [click to continue…]

You can download a free pdf of excerpts from the 2nd Edition of The Reel World here. Now some quick background. Some years ago, before I composed for a living, I was a musician helping cook up cool sounds and musical ideas for films and film composers (I also worked on a lot of records, […]

The score to Sony Playstation God of War III has been nominated for the 2010 Hollywood Music In Media Award. I share the nomination with the rest of the team of Cris Velasco, Mike Reagan, Gerard Marino, and Ron Fish. All terrific composers. It was fun and a real creative challange. I created about 25 […]

I recently recorded the orchestra for a small film called The Chosen One. The film was released on DVD and is likely to come out in limited release either late this year or early in 2011. The score is a blend of lush orchestra with some great solo work from guitars and flutes from South […]

I really want to keep this more current. I am on Facebook and MySpace (barely) and am finally keeping things on Twitter as well. I just completed the score to The Tortured, working with director Darren Lynn Bousman. He’s a great guy, and while his name doesn’t appear on the film (he came in later […]

February/March 2009 A little while since my last entry. I do keep up on FaceBook, if you want to meet me there. But keep coming back here for new music and info. Work on the eerie and fascinating new television serie Persons Unknown continues. As the project has eveolved through several re-edits and reshoots, I’ve […]

A warm winter here in Los Angeles. Work has begun on The Tortured and God of War 3, whilePersons Unknown is moving along, and new projects are coming soon. I attended the recent NAMM show here in Anaheim, and while I didn’t see anything to get too excited about, I was pleased to see that […]

September 2009 While summer is coming to an end, the studio is busy as ever. I am continuing to work on Person’s Unknown, which will premiere next season on NBC. I’ve started a new film as well. The Chosen One stars Ron Schneider (in a serious turn) and Steve Buscemi (in a comedic turn). I’m […]

Happy summer to all you northern-hemispherians. Spent a week at the Aspen Music Festival teaching, concert-going, hiking and taking in some of the most pristine nature in the country. I am back to my studio, refreshed and busy. The TV series I am currently scoring was recently picked by NBC, and we are awaiting word […]